We've been saying for a long time that we want to see South Australia become the best place in the country to live, work and invest.
At the moment, with our great state leading the nation's economic recovery, we're approaching this rapidly, but it's no time to take our foot off the pedal.
In fact, it's the perfect time to get into reform mode.
That's why we've today launched our pre-election log of claims, called The ThreePs - People, Productivity and Place.
We believe continued actions under these broad policy umbrellas will be critical to transforming the state's potential into realised prosperity.
Much of this is about building on existing strengths.
In population, international migration continues to ride high, we're punching above our weight in attracting overseas students and, anecdotally, it appears our traditional net outflow of young people across the state's borders is slowing.
However, we need to ramp up our efforts to attract skilled migrants and to maximise benefits for the state from their talents and their contacts in their original homes.
We need to build the opportunities to attract and retain young people. And we need to stop seeing overseas students as a short-term gain for the state and focus on turning them into proud South Australians.
Productivity hasn't been high on the political agenda; understandably, because implementing can be tough. But boosting productivity is also widely considered one of the best ways of lifting living standards.
We can boost productivity in South Australia by continuing our drive towards new industries like defence, resources, clean tech and education exports. We can no longer rely on low-value manufacture as our economic platform.
In order to catalyse this change, we also need to give businesses the right environment in which to invest.
At the moment we're constrained by an oppressive land tax system that discourages business risks and limits the property transactions that allow business to grow.
Place is also another area where we can make huge advancements as a state.
Place is everything around us; it's where we live, where we work and where we go to relax and have fun. It's where we gather, it's where we feel proud and where we make our links with the community.
Done well, the art of making places can affect the way we interact, how we do business and influence many of our decisions.
In fact, place is a crucial factor in where people choose to live or work.
It's therefore critical we have in place the mechanisms that allow an adaptable approach to creating places for people.
The planning and development system is important, but it also takes in our approach to heritage, the design of our transport systems, the connectivity and functioning of our central city and to the links between our cities, towns and regions.
Combined, actions in these areas will have a powerful effect in driving the community we all want in the long run.
But the changes will take political will and political capital, as not all of the necessary changes will meet with parochial, narrow views of a minority.
So long as we agree on the whole that growth is better than stagnation and that prosperity is preferable to genteel decline, I have no doubt we can make it happen.
I ask you to throw your support behind the ThreePs.
Nathan Paine |
Monday, 15 February 2010 1:00 AM |
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